Continuation of the Pearl Delivery and Feed Board Project

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Last week I walked into the shop to find my nicely glued delivery board half on the bracket and half on the floor. Seems the wood dried one way, the glue the other. It split right at the glue joint. So I did a little planing of the split edge with a block plane to take out a slight bowing of the wood, re-glued and re-clamped. I left it clamped for about 4 days. This morning I un-clamped it, and mounted it on the Pearl's table bracket using two horizontal lengths of oak as an underside batten bracket. I also glued and nailed the thin delivery boards' back strip onto the delivery board as well. While I was tempted to both glue AND screw the oak battens beneath the table, I figures that it wouldn't be really supporting all that much weight, so I settled for screwing it on, and leaving it be.

Here are some shots.

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This is an underside shot of the main table, what I call the "Delivery Board" because I "deliver" the printed material to this board. I feed from the upper board. Maybe I have it backward, but it's the way I do it. Anywhoo . . . .
Note the battens also serve as a stand off between the iron brackets and the table itself. Sort of killing two birds with one stone. Now, that frontmost screw is biting a bit close to the actual glued split itself, but so far, so good.

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This is the underside of the swivel feed board before I attached it. I thought I might show how the hardware integrates with the board. What you see here is all the hardware involved: a bracket for the underside of the board itself, which provides support, an iron stand-off "pillar", a long shouldered screw with three washers, and a nut.

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This is a closeup of the hardware. I painted the iron stand-off with black oil-based Rustoleum, as well the bracket. I did not paint the screw or washer. They didn't really need it, anyway.

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First, you slide the screw through it's hole in the feedboard. That hole has a metal grommet actually recessed into the wood. For it's simplicity, the design is very purposefull. After insertion of the screw, two of the washers slip over it, as shown.

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Next, the iron stand-off is slid over the screw, and under the two washers. It's the slip between the two washers that enable the table to swivel.

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The assembly is then threaded through the hole on the delivery board, the last washer slid over the screw on the base, and the nut tightened down, securing the whole assembly. This nut is tightened quite a bit. The table swivels well, but not loosely or with any degree of "flop". All things considered, it's actually a pretty good design, and best of all, absolutely reproduce-able. A cut length of conduit or even copper piping and a washer can be substituted for the iron stand-off.

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And there it is! Glued, Stained, braced, assembled and mounted. Who would have thought two pieces of wood with absolutely no joinery would take almost two weeks to finish? I was torn between varnishing the tables or just letting them be with the finish as it is. I think I will leave it as is. I might rub some Danish or Tung oil on it later.

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I also put the finishing touches on the drawers. Basically, I took some very fine grit sand paper and lightly sanded the "hackle" off. Some of the New England cabinetmakers would spray their wood with water to raise the hackle, and sand it down the next day before applying finish. Here you can see a little of the inside of the drawers, just to prove they're real, and not faux fronts (grin). In case you're wondering, the drawers were stained with the same orange lacquer stain used for the feed and deliver boards. Two different results! But all in all, she turned out pretty good, I think.

Now, we await rollers.

Good Providence in all your Letterpress endeavours!

-g.

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Just added: there have been a number of requests for my table dimensions.  They are as follows:

Lower board: 7 x 17-1/8 inches

Upper board: 7-3/4 x 23 inches

Backboard is a thin strip running along the back of lower board to within one inch of each edge. You might be able to ascertain the arc of the curved corners by the photos.

There has been some discussion on the Pearl Restore group as to the authenticty of my swivel mechanism.  So far as I know, mine is original to the press, but we have also ascertained that there has been a number of hardware changes regarding these bolt-on items over the years by Golding, so it's pretty hard to establish just what is original.  My best advice here is that if two or more Pearl owners have the same hardware, chances are pretty good that either A)- it's original, or at least authentic to the press, or B) - it was a known aftermarket piece, and probably a safe bet that it was widely used.

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